It is common knowledge that one had apple spoils the whole bunch;the same is true of prisoners penned up together in a prison.Ask any parent to describe how one “bad seed”in a group of children can make the other children act.It is well known that this is evil child can lead all the others into evil.This is also true in prisons.In prison,we house a few truly terrible criminals with the many others that have committed harmless crimes.These harmless criminals learn even worse behaviour from the terrible ones.

Prison conditions help this process.Prisons are boring.They are abusive and full of injustice.Violent gangs wrest control from guards and officials and rule prisons with tyranny.These conditions turn minor offenders into violent maniacs.

Few prison inmates perform useful work.The system promotes idleness.While prisoners stand around inthe recreation yard,the seasoned prisoners teach the younger ones.They teach them the ins and outs of becoming successful criminals,just as professors instruct their pupils.The veterans tell them type of stores to rod,what kind of guns to use,and how to disguise themselves.One former inmate calls prisons “graduate schools for crime.”

Anger plays another important role in creating more criminal behavior.Inmates feel mistreated,and their anger builds up. Once a criminal is back to society,that anger breaks loose,resulting in more crime.According to Philip Zimbardo,a professor at Stanford University,70 percent of all released prisoners return to prison for committing further crimes.The main reason,Zimbardo believes,is that prisons “are breeding grounds of hatred… a hatred that makes every citizen a target of violent assault.”

Zimbardo has done research on the prison environment.Using a group of twenty-four college students,he had half act as guards and half act as prisoners.These were normal,happy,intelligent college kids.He had to end the study after just six days because the “guards” began to treat the “prisoners” too cruelly.The prisoners felt so awful that they were filled with hatred for the guards.And these kids knew it was an experiment and that they could stop at any time.How much worse must it be in a real prison?This study proves that prisons bred more crime and hatred.

But we do not need any studies to tell us prisons breed more criminals.Just look at the dangerous youth gangs like the Bloods and the Crips.These groups got their start in prisons.Now they carry their violence through the streets outside prison,murdering and dealing drugs.As Jack Henry Abbott,a convicted murderer,writes,”No one has ever come out of prison a better man.